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WHERE WE LIVE

Quiet district built for speed

A century ago, streetcars took racing fans to the popular Driving Park in the South Side neighborhood where Eddie Rickenbacker grew up

View LargerCOURTNEY HERGESHEIMERDISPATCHMichael Aaron, who directs the Livingston Avenue Area Commission, bought his house in Driving Park two years ago. Eddie Rickenbacker at the wheel of a Firestone racer, probably at the Columbus Driving Park.

These are the places we call home -- the places where we raise our families, cook our meals and spend our lives. Not only have these places play a role in our individual histories, but they have also played a role in Columbus history. The Dispatch visits some of these communities and shares their stories.

As you drive along Livingston Avenue today through the Driving Park neighborhood, it’s difficult
to imagine the clanging streetcars that rushed up and down the busy thoroughfare a century ago.

But that’s exactly what community leaders want residents and visitors to imagine and feel.

They’ve asked the Columbus City Council to name the area the “Streetcar District,” which also
would include parts of the Old Oaks, Southern Orchards and Livingston Park neighborhoods.

It’s a way to change the image of an area that has long fought blight and decline, crime and
gangs, said Michael Aaron, a Driving Park resident who leads the Livingston Avenue Area
Commission.

Driving Park was among the city’s first streetcar suburbs, developing along with the extension
of streetcar lines to what used to be outlying areas of Columbus.

“We’re trying to promote the history of the area,” Aaron said. “It’s a brand.”

When people see or hear the name “Streetcar District,” they’ll want to know more about the area
and the neighborhoods, he said.

But Driving Park’s history goes far beyond trolley cars.

World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker grew up there in a modest bungalow on Livingston
Avenue just east of Lockbourne Avenue.

The house next door is dedicated to African-American inventor Granville T. Woods, a Columbus
native who was dubbed the black Thomas Edison. He received more than 150 patents, including one for
a telegraph that helped dispatchers locate trains.

But what about the name
Driving Park? The neighborhood owes its name to a racetrack built in the late 19th
century. The Columbus Ohio Driving Realty Co. bought the land in 1892.

At first, it was a popular horse racetrack. Eventually, cars began to race around the 1-mile
oval. Rickenbacker himself drove there, winning a 25-mile race in 1915.

The first Franklin County Fair was held in August 1910 at the track and again in 1917.

Seymour Avenue bordered the track to the east; Ellsworth Avenue, to the west. The neighborhood’s
circular park now sits in the middle of what used to be that oval, between Berkeley and Lilley
avenues.

In November 1910, the track became a landing strip and the scene of a promotional stunt designed
by local businessman Max Morehouse. He set up the first air-cargo delivery, hiring Phil Parmelee to
fly a Wright brothers Model B airplane loaded with 200 pounds of silk cloth from Dayton.

The track was a big draw for racing crowds. Miller and Kelton avenues were among the streets
built south from Broad Street to help get people to the track, said Doug Motz, an Old Oaks
community leader and president of the Columbus Historical Society.

African-American baseball teams also played there, Motz said. “It was kind of a playground on
the outskirts of town until the land became more valuable as a residential area.”

Columbus continued to grow steadily to the south and east. The track’s owners sold the property
to the Driving Park Realty Co. in 1926, and the land was subdivided.

Unique homes began to rise west of Fairwood Avenue, attracting middle-class shop owners and
professionals. The art deco Livingston Theatre was built.

“Things were booming along,” Motz said.

Over the years, African-Americans moved in. One was James Johnson, a longtime community leader
who arrived in March 1966. He was police supervisor at what was then Lockbourne Air Force Base.

“I looked all over the city and thought it was a very nice area,” said Johnson, 83, who grew up
in Mississippi.

Now, the neighborhood is pockmarked with vacant and boarded-up homes. Some have been that way
for 15 years, Johnson said.

In all, there are 218 vacant homes in Driving Park, according to the city’s code-enforcement
office.

“How do you redevelop those homes?” Johnson said. “We don’t need to look like a third-world
country.”

But George Holliman, who was president of the former Driving Park Area Commission, said he
wouldn’t live anywhere else.

What keeps him in Driving Park?

“The character of the people there — hardworking, family-oriented,” said Holliman, a retired
state worker. “It’s really not that bad of an area as it’s portrayed.”

Aaron lives in a brick-and-stucco Tudor-style house built in 1939 on Lilley Avenue. He bought it
for $72,500 two years ago and said homes of the same style and era in Bexley cost three times
more.

He believes that the Nationwide Children’s Hospital expansion and the improvements along
Livingston will one day attract hospital employees to Driving Park.

And although they won’t be able to take the streetcar to work, they can imagine what it would
have been like.